The Ukrainian woman suspected of planting a parcel bomb in Monaco that injured a sanctioned businessman and his family has been found shot dead near Kyiv, Ukraine's security service (SBU) has announced. Two men have been charged with her murder, including an active officer of Ukraine's military intelligence directorate — a development that threatens to complicate Kyiv's relations with its European partners.
The explosion occurred on 29 June, when a package left in the entrance hall of a luxury apartment building in Monaco — the tiny, wealthy city-state on the French Riviera — detonated as three people were entering the building shortly after 9pm local time. Two of them were seriously injured. Local and regional media identified the target as Vadym Yermolaiev, a Ukrainian-born real estate developer and businessman whom Forbes Ukraine ranked as the country's 39th wealthiest individual in 2020, with an estimated fortune of $230 million. His partner and 13-year-old son were also wounded. Monaco's prosecutor confirmed the attack was targeted rather than an act of terrorism, though the motive has not been established. Yermolaiev holds Cypriot citizenship, having renounced his Ukrainian nationality in 2019, and had been living in Monaco. He has significant business interests in wine and real estate, including in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, and has been subject to sanctions imposed by Kyiv since 2023.
Monaco's deputy prosecutor Morgan Raymond said the prime suspect, 39-year-old Anastasiia Berezovska, had spent several days surveilling the building before the attack and had disguised herself as a man when she placed the device, detonating it remotely. Interpol issued a red notice for her arrest on Friday, and German special forces searched an apartment linked to her in the central state of Hesse. However, the SBU says Berezovska had already returned to Ukraine on 1 July — two days after the attack. Two days later, two men met her in a vehicle on a highway in the Kyiv region. She was subsequently shot in the head and her body was buried in a forest in the Kyiv region, where it was later discovered by investigators.
Ukrainian authorities traced the two suspects through financial records showing repeated transfers of funds to Berezovska's bank and cryptocurrency accounts, which also made them persons of interest in the Monaco bombing itself. One of the men is a former law enforcement officer; the other is a serving officer of Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR), the military intelligence agency. The HUR officer subsequently confessed to the murder, telling investigators he had acted on his own initiative without informing his superiors. Both men have been charged with premeditated murder carried out by a group. A room described as resembling a torture chamber was found in a basement at the former law enforcement officer's home, though Ukrainian prosecutors stressed there was no evidence connecting it to Berezovska's murder.
The affair poses significant political risks for Ukraine. Analysts note that evidence linking members of Ukrainian intelligence to a bombing on European soil could damage Kyiv's standing with its Western allies at a particularly sensitive moment — the case broke as a NATO summit was under way in Ankara, Turkey, where President Volodymyr Zelensky was seeking increased military support. The SBU said it is sharing all available information with Monaco's authorities and that investigators are continuing to work to identify other suspects in the original attack.